U.S. military leaders urged caution, saying it would far more dangerous than in Libya and that diplomacy is still Obama's focus.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey at a media briefing / Reuters

The military campaign would begin with U.S. warplanes jamming Syria's
air-defense systems and then destroying them. With those systems out of
the way, American aircraft would help create a no-fly zone to protect
the country's pro-democracy protesters and a humanitarian corridor to
allow them to receive food, water, and medicine. The U.S. and its allies
would also decide whether to directly arm the rebels as the opposition
forces made a final push to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

That,
at least, would be the most likely scenario if President Obama ordered
the American military to directly intervene in Syria, according to the
Pentagon's top leaders.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee
on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that the U.S. was pushing for a
diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis and had deep concerns about
using force there.

Still, the two men said that the United States
was considering an array of ideas for protecting the Syrian people
including, Panetta said, "potential military options." Dempsey, in his
testimony, said that those options would likely include the destruction
of Syria's air defenses and the creation of a no-fly zone.

At the
same time, the two made clear that strikes weren't imminent. The
Pentagon had begun war-gaming various scenarios, Dempsey said, but had
yet to present them to the president. Panetta said that the U.S. was
still working to assemble an international coalition against Assad so
that Washington wouldn't have to act alone.

Dempsey also pointed
out that Syria's air defenses were five times more sophisticated as
those in Libya, making airstrikes riskier and more complicated. Panetta,
for his part, said that the systems had been set up in heavily
populated areas, which meant that American strikes could cause "severe
collateral damage."

The testimony came as the Syrian crisis - and
the international debate about how to handle it - continued to escalate.
Outside groups estimate that Assad's forces have killed at least 7,500
people and effectively leveled rebel-held cities such as Homs. The U.S.
and its allies have slapped hard-hitting economic and political
sanctions on Damascus, but Russia and China have prevented the United
Nations Security Council for authorizing stronger measures.

Here at home, an array of prominent senators is calling for the U.S. to do more to stop the bloodshed. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have pressed for U.S. military involvement in Syria, with
McCain this week explicitly calling for American airstrikes against
Syrian forces.

At Wednesday's hearing, McCain criticized the
administration for not acting more quickly and aggressively to force
Assad out of power.

Panetta and Dempsey made it clear that they shared McCain's
outrage at Assad's continued slaughter and that they believe that he
long ago lost any legitimate claim to power. Panetta likened the
brutality and scope of Assad's crackdown to the violence unleashed by
Chinese forces when they crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square in the 1990s.

But the secretary and the chairman
stressed again and again that using the American military to push Assad
from power would be far more challenging than similar humanitarian
interventions into Libya and Bosnia. In addition to the size and
sophistication of Syria's air defenses, they pointed out that Syria has a
large military; the active assistance of Iran, which is shipping
antitank missiles and other armaments into the country; and a stockpile
of chemical and biological weapons a hundred times larger than that in
Libya.

They also warned that the U.S. was unsure of the exact
makeup of the Syrian rebel groups, including whether they had ties to
al-Qaida or other extremist groups. Panetta and Dempsey said that the
rebels didn't appear to have the kind of clear hierarchy and
well-organized leadership structure that existed in Libya.

Still,
the Syria conundrum won't end anytime soon. Assad's forces have crushed
the opposition inside Homs and have clear momentum on the ground. The
Obama administration faces a difficult and unwanted choice: Intervene
militarily despite the clear risks of doing so, or rely on sanctions and
diplomatic pressure despite the clear risks of failing to stop an
unfolding humanitarian disaster.

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